Four Stories of Alleged Time Travellers

Is it possible to travel through time? We may never know, but in the meantime we can at least enjoy a good laugh at those who would have us believe they’ve cracked the code.

1.

Andrew D. Basiago

Mr. Basiago is a smart dude: he's a lawyer, holds five degrees and was a member of MENSA. He'd also like you to believe that he was the first child to teleport through time, so you may want to take the rest of his claims with a grain of salt.

Above: integrity?

Basiago claims that as a child growing up in the 60s and 70s he was involved in “Project Pegasus,” a project lead by the United States military exploring time-travel and teleportation. One-hundred and forty children total were involved. Basiago's adventures include being sent back to 1,000,000 BC and watching dinosaurs, being sent to 2045 to pick up microfilm, and meeting Barack Obama while he was still in school. As a reward for his good time-service Basiago was sent to hear Lincoln give the Gettysburg Address, where claims to have been photographed. BOOM! Proof!

If you find it a little difficult to take any of his claims seriously, you're not alone. His supporters, however, make a valid point: he's a lawyer. Have you ever known a lawyer to lie?

2.

William Stillings

Every Batman needs his Robin. Andrew Basiago's old chum is William Stillings, chrononaut and “technical genius.” Stilling and Basiago were both enrolled in the same DARPA program in the 80s and trained to teleport from Earth to Mars through use of a “jump room.” All of this training, by the by, took place at a California community college. The next time someone gives you guff for not attending a “real” university, feel free to drop that bomb on them.

Anyway, the dynamic twosome were part of a ten-man team that regularly traveled to Mars to help establish an American presence (to be used as a legal claim to the territory) and patrol military bases previously constructed on the red planet. By Stillings' own account America had sent nearly one-hundred thousand people to Mars, but only seven-thousand survived.

You are expected to believe this.

Among Stillings more wackier claims (if you can comparatively measure the wackiness of his claims, anyway) are that he and Basiago had gone to Mars on separate trips with none other than Barack Obama, then going by Barry Soetoro, and current DARPA chief Regina Dugan.

This information only came out in September 2011, around thirty years after it was alleged to have happened. It was only after Stillings and Basiago met again that they shared memories and – surprise, surprise – they were both in the same program. But there's a good reason why he couldn't remember: the CIA used drugs to block the memories. But apparently the same people that can send people to Mars couldn't come up with a more efficient way of erasing someone's memory.

3.

John Titor

An American soldier from 2036 selected for a time travel mission to the 70s to pick-up an old IBM computer to debug issues with future computers who stopped in the year 2000 to hang out on the Internet.

If you're not high enough to understand the logic behind John Titor's origin story, don't worry; there are several websites dedicated the man that can break it down for you. But as silly as it may sound, the John Titor story gained a lot of traction back in 2000 from paranormal groups, sci-fi nerds and the mainstream media alike.

Also, this is his time machine.

Titor made several warnings on the Art Bell message board about the future. Most of them focused on “N. Day” when Russia would be launch nuclear strikes against America, China and Europe sometime in 2015, either sparking or concluding World War III. He also claimed that there were an infinite number of universes where all possibilities could occur or, in other words, he was full of shit and he was hoping people didn't notice.

Titor's posts stopped in March 2000 and since then a grand total of zero of his predictions have come to pass. The most obvious failure is the predicted American civil war scheduled back in 2008 in response to the presidential election. The country was supposed to be divided into five factions. Even if you ignore that something like that wasn't even remotely close to happening, Titor's posts contradicted themselves constantly, saying that the future could be changed (due to the infinite possibilities thing) but that his predictions were inevitable. Though the real identity of John Titor has never been revealed, the contradictions point to the possibility that it was multiple people.

4.

James Burda

So far our time-travelers have used their skill simply to bewilder or confuse, but our last entry, James Burda, is using his power for good. Specifically, he's a chiropractor and can cure what ails you with the awesome power of time travel.

Burda claims that in 2006 he simply told his body to stop hurting and boom, healed. He founded his practice and named this unique skill “Bahlaqeem,” a word that he openly admits has no meaning but sounds nice and has nine letters, an apparent good sign. Harnessing the power Bahlaqeem, Burda is able to treat people through vibrations regardless of where they are, meaning he can heal anyone from any distance. This amazing service only costs sixty dollars American, though the first one is on the house. In extreme cases Burda can see through time to the moment when the injury occurred.

He can fix this without even seeing you.

The Ohio board of chiropractors, however, we not impressed by his feats of wonder. Despite his claims that nine out of ten customers were satisfied with his service, Burda's license was revoked and he himself was deemed mentally unfit to practice. In light of this injustice Burda began campaigning for the right to practice alternative medicine.

Despite no longer having a chiropractic license, Burda's website is still accessible and reveals quite a bit about his mythical practice. Specifically, despite his miraculous powers Burda claims the system works in the same paragraph that he isn't making the medical claim that the system works. Indeed, the world of alternative medical practice has its limits, and apparently that line is drawn right around where legal responsibility begins.